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The Church of Scotland's Less Than Awesome Report on Israel

Oh, dear, Church of Scotland. Liam Hoare writes for the Jewish Daily Forward:

The injection of theology into the Israeli-Palestinian real estate dispute has rarely proved helpful, particularly in cases where one side seeks to make a claim to all the land at the expense of the other.

The Church of Scotland’s laughably regressive new document, “The Inheritance of Abraham?: A Report on the ‘Promised Land,” which wilfully mischaracterises and then dismisses Jewish claims to a state in Palestine, is equally as unwelcome.

Zionism is not (no matter how it may sometimes look, and I acknowledge and decry the confusion) a religious movement. Zionism is Jewish nationalism, rooted in a shared and ancient heritage—not unlike Palestinian nationalism, just better-known. Either we accept the paradigm of nationalism, or we don’t (and given the Church’s position on Scottish independence, I presume that you do).

And to the extent that Jews (Zionist or otherwise) are going to make religious decisions about our identity based on our Scriptures, we don’t need Christians to tell us how to do so.